Comic Sketches: April 2023

Hello to you all, lovely readers! Rejoice, for we are finally, finally free of the Murrit Mines, which have been our constant companion for these past few months of comic commentary. It was not easy, but I believe we have now come out of the other side more resilient. Wiser. Our bonds strengthened and reaffirmed. We are unshakeable, tempered in the fires of this longest of Turkin crucibles.

But enough about that fish! Onward to some delicious boards.

As much as we all love our favorite be-shuttered main cast member, I think everyone on the team was very excited to work on regular updates again after several months of flash production.  Especially with the introduction of VE's very first scene selection page! If may be so bold, I think we came back swinging with this series of updates here.

The Calder scene (plus that very first update featuring White Noise) was all penned by the illustrious and ever-talented Ciro. Truly a match made in heaven - if there's one thing we can say Ciro is proficient in, it's lovingly depicting all sorts of rich assholes. He absolutely knocked it out of the park with bringing the interiors of Calder's bastard mansion to life, everything looks so opulent and gorgeous already and it's not even the proper sketches! Speaking of, he's also the artist handling the sketches for this section, unless otherwise noted.

Watch out for Peeping Tom over here. Seems like our co-narrator is accumulating more and more narrative pies which feature the presence of their fingers. I wonder if they'll ever get a chance to chat with our true!Murrit face to face?

Been a while since we had a proper White Noise monologue! Grandpa Bones sure does love to rattle on and on.

On the writing side, these pages always feel like sort of a balancing act. The way WN speaks when he gets into one of his Moods:tm: is deliberately purple prose-ish, but we also don't want to go too overboard to the point where we completely lose the readers or end up adding a bunch of nonsense words just to fill some space. On the other hand, he is supposed to put things in a way that nearly obscures what he's truly getting at. That's the thing with intentional friction in your writing - it still is friction at the end of the day, and some folks are bound to be put off by it regardless.

Either way, WN's tirades never consist of pure overwrought nonsense. Far from it: if you take the time to decode his metaphors and turns of phrases, you'll find he often talks about some pretty relevant themes regarding the more... I guess meta aspects of the comic? Having a character who is both present in-universe while simultaneously being the veneer through which most of the story is told allows for some very interesting ways to sneak in some relevant commentary about narrative, fandom, and the relationship between author and audience. Which is kind of what he and Mimesis are all about in the end, as very exaggerated and strawman-y versions of certain philosophies/ways of approaching those matters.

Gosh, maybe they could take a page out of each other's books!

Every once in a while we have the opportunity to just let Xam loose on a panel, and by god do they always deliver. Messing with different styles is so much fun! I love all the instances of it that have been featured in the comic so far.

This panel really had no specific directions regarding what visuals to lean on, but I'm particularly charmed by the collage WN that Xam came up with.

It's not every day that WN decides to take someone up on their advice. This old bag of bones has been around the block for a good long while and he's pretty set in his ways - I mean, we just saw him ramble extensively for a handful of pages about how his manner of doing things is completely in the right, unimpeachable and superior. Guess he really must have a soft spot for one Mx. Raines.

We've arrived at the much beloved SCENE SELECTION PAGE! A place we are still stuck on at the time of writing this Patreon post, in fact. Victoria was the one who programmed, designed and made all the sketches for this panel, plus the little extra doodles we set as placeholders while we were still working on the updates. Here they are, saved for posterity:

The "let people enjoy things" was initially just a joke but we thought it was so funny we ended up going with that for the actual asset.

Absolutely love all of these doodles. They are very cute and good. And I'm super excited to get to all the other scenes that have been hinted at here! But that is for later. For now, it is...

Calder time.

Really, I don't think there's a more apt opener we could have picked for this scene other than a concise and resounding "ugh". That's how I feel whenever the guy is on screen.

I jest, I jest. I give Calder a lot of shit on these, but I do genuinely enjoy him a lot. He's a really fun character and, as you all found out at the end of this branch of the scene select, a BIG plot mover and shaker. I always have a soft spot for guys who are so very committed to messing things up horribly for everyone else. Who doesn't love a good sprinkle of hubris in their antagonists?

Because Ciro always goes above and beyond, he made some dazzling color keys for this scene to help direct the vibe of Calder's planet. Aren't they gorgeous???? I'm gonna give him the floor (read: paraphrase a conversation he had with Austin while they were figuring this out) so he can explain a bit more of the thought process behind everything.

CIRO: I initially saw the castle with a Greek/Roman temple aesthetic in my mind's eye. The goal was to make it like a US congressional house with greekisms, basically - regal, while also looking like every public American government building, because Americans were obsessed with Greek architecture. It looked "smart".

AUSTIN: Just wait until Calder finds the secret boss inside the Lincoln memorial.

CIRO: The enemy all along was George Washington! Actually, why is the apotheosis of George Washington a real piece of art in the real US capitol dome? Why the fuck is the president depicted like this???

AUSTIN: I hope the interiors of this castle are covered in this shit. Touch of God with Reagan.

CIRO: Oh you bet! I very much imagine lots of ceiling carvings and paintings of really stupid shit like this and lots of mirrors.

Delightful. And speaking of his planet, it was a ton of fun to concept how it would function back when I too was discussing it with Austin. LOMAQ was one of the player lands that didn't have a ton of concrete mechanics established yet, and the one shot we had of it during [S] Ellsee: Enter gave us a lot of wiggle room to take things in many possible directions. We ended up arriving at the idea of a very spread out and lonely planet, filled with ruins and lighthouses, with one main central palace-like building that was much, much bigger on the inside than it seemed on the outside. Effectively, this is the main hub of Calder's land.

It's always fascinating to watch the audience reactions to Calder conversations. When you're actively involved with a story, it tends to make certain things seem very, very obvious to you, to the point where it's a little baffling when people don't come to the conclusion you thought they would. How is everyone missing all these nudges and signposts???

This is a feeling I have a lot when Calder comes up in fan discussions - here, for example, I saw some folks miss the fact that Calder is blatantly, intentionally trying to manipulate Ellsee into sharing information with him, something that's he's always tried to do ever since the first conversation they had! His entire game is trying to undermine her connections with others and put himself forward as the only safe person they can commiserate with.

In the end, though, I think this willingness to give him the benefit of the doubt and take his words at face value made the reveal that he's been working with Edolon the whole time pack that much more of a punch, which is fantastic! For us, of course. We LOVE drama and shitty characters doing bad things.

AUSTIN: I think the only other thing to mention is Ellsee talking about how she's in the middle of trying to figure other things out. We don't know what that means yet, but it is certainly a lead-in for... later.

NEVER trust a man who is an asshole to poor little talking animal critters for no reason!!!

I really like the upper panel of the palace. It's just a very cool establishing shot! God bless Ciro for wrangling all those columns, lord knows dealing with architecture in perspective can be a bitch. The waves being animated in the final panel was a very nice touch on Tyson's end too, gave the official name drop of Calder's land just that extra little bit of pizazz.

Some more color keys, handled by Tyson on top of Ciro's sketch! All in all, I would say these series of updates have just been a smorgasbord of gorgeous, decadent architecture shots. So this one goes out to all you interior/exterior design fans in the audience, you are welcome.

Wow, Calder REALLY does not care for this portrait, huh? It would be pretty funny if later he found out that he has a bit more in common with this mysterious human than he thinks. 

And one last color key for the road, also handled by Ciro. The muted blues made for a nice contrast against the screaming bright electric blue the wallpaper is sporting, and the canvas texture was a nice extra touch to further separate it from the background and give the portrait a bit of extra oomph.

It bears asking: have you ever considered that YOU might look A Bit Shit yourself, Calder?

I think this is my favorite sequence out of all the Calder updates. It's hard to pick, because this segment is just so full of particularly banger visuals, but I really enjoy the sense of movement here, it's such a fun follow-through of motion. Tyson also came up with some GORGEOUS colors for this in-between space while Calder was teleported away.

In case anyone still had any doubts, yeah, this gimmick was totally a rip-off from Super Mario 64. Proud to say I was the one who came up with it during that aforementioned planet brainstorming session! I thought it was super fitting for a Void player, to have these hidden portals inside a big labyrinthine structure that chuck you into otherwise inaccessible portions of your planet, after which the metaphorical door just slams shut behind you. Something about charting obscured, invisible paths through an unknown landscape... it compels me.

Besides that, we've got some more vaguely ominous and ominously vague narration that implies something about Calder's planet, mysteriously. As is par for the course for this comic! Perhaps something to do with future mechanics of LOMAQ we've yet to see.

Absolutely love this giant freak's whole vibe. Me when I am so very large and unsettling with my gooey arms and multiple eyes and all of that.

Calder is going for gold in the stagnant bitter little man Olympics over here. I'm sure completely ignoring the cues your character development crucible is trying to hint at is going to work out WONDERFULLY for him down the line!

And, at last, we have arrived at the star of this whole detour: the conversation with Arcjec. Perhaps the Most Important Conversation Calder Has Had so far? Your mileage may vary, but either way, it was very very exciting to finally get to it (and some subsequent revelations) after having had these moments outlined in our planning docs for such a long time. Austin made a thread back when these pages first went live that highlight certain relevant aspects of it, so I'm gonna link that there in case some of you missed it.

On to the juicy bits!

First off, Ciro did an absolutely fantastic job figuring out how to handle the visual aspects of this update. Austin didn't have a specific way he wanted the scene to play out other than a switch to more abstract imagery and some intentional mirroring of that past conversation Calder had with Ellsee a long time ago, and I'm so thrilled at where we landed. It's straightforward yet powerful, and communicates the feelings we wanted to evoke with this conversation very clearly. It's elegant, it's stylish, it's fun to look at. ART!

On the writing end, you can really see Calder deploying all of his nasty tricks in quick succession, trying to throw Arcjec off his scent. Misdirection, attempting to rile him up, the works - I think it shows just how scared Calder is of stopping and actually letting himself listen to Arcjec in earnest. He knows that they're one of the people in the group with the highest chance of being able to, perhaps, pierce through his carefully constructed walls. And that is a very dangerous game to be playing.

I'm a huge fan of the touch Tyson added in the finalized version of that last panel, where their regular base colors start seeping into it and peeling back the monochrome caste-colors. Arcjec's bleeding heart protagonist powers strike again???

AUSTIN: I think Arcjec's dialogue really shows that going into the game and realizing the ramifications of it has started changing his mindset, and is making him reconsider his choices - especially when it comes to how his actions have affected those who were once closest to him. Obviously, he isn't a changed character or anything, it's not like he's reverting back to his younger self (something that he mentions not even wanting to do near the end of the log), but he realizes that it's now or never to start rebuilding these bridges.

AUSTIN: Calder, on the other hand, is standing on the opposite side with kerosene and a lighter in hand.

Oh well. Old college try and all.

AUSTIN: There are a few moments where it seems like Calder even wavers and the two go into a friendly banter, and I'm not going to say that Calder did that intentionally to lure Arcjec into a false sense of security just to make bringing the hammer down hurt that much more, but I AM going to say that I think he realized doing that would be an excellent idea by the end.

Guy who just LOVES twisting the knife.

AUSTIN: You can pretty much pinpoint the second where Arcjec's heart rips in half! But I do also think it says a lot that even though Calder clearly isn't willing, Arcjec isn't allowing themself to give up on Calder so easily either. Which, in turn, only makes Calder that much more bitter.

And THE BIG REVEAL IS HERE!!!

Folks, I really cannot overstate how fucking excited we were to drop this bomb. Like, cackling and rubbing our hands together excited. It's been mentioned plenty of times at this point, but this was a LONG time coming, and if you bother to go back and re-read some relevant pages, you can find hints that something was up with Calder as far back as his introduction. Personally, I think this was one of the best executed story beats so far, in the sense of it being instrumental in putting a lot into perspective and explaining things that were slightly confusing, like: Calder's apparent knowledge regarding the Game from the jump, his sudden interest in Ellsee('s book), that spontaneous attempt to make others suspicious of Taz in the group chat, etc. I don't know, I just really love the concept of a secret antagonist originally being a part of the "heroic" main cast! It's neat.

When we were originally outlining these pages, the intent was for that first panel to show Calder being shaken by his conversation with Arcjec, but some readers interpreted it as him being nervous about Edolon contacting him, which, honestly? Why not both? Both is good. Edolon is scary.

AUSTIN: Also, Seinru hand grafting real. Real AND gross. REAL gross.

What is super interesting about this conversation is that I don't think we've ever seen Calder this mellow and acquiescent in the comic. His modus operandi is to be full of bluster and look down on basically everyone he interacts with, but here... he tries to complain a little about the Harbingers' conduct at the top, and is immediately shut down when Edolon presses him on his end of their evil little agreement. And he zips it, just like that! Unprecedented!

Other than that, it is a little unsettling to see the guy who is always so sure of himself and trying to run circles around everybody being so blatantly manipulated - it's usually the other way around! But Edolon is choosing his words very deliberately here, to apparent great effect. Uh oh.

We hope this brief exchange served to instill everyone with the intended sense of shit, this is the bigger, eviler fish behind the evil fish.

And that's all for this commentary post! We hope you guys enjoyed the read. Tune in next month for the Albion updates and the start of the post-Incursion segment! See you all then.

- Eddie, Austin & Ciro